Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Hear the word of the Lord, O people of
Israel; for the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or
loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land. Swearing, lying, and murder, and
stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and
all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of
the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing. (Hosea 4:1-3, NRSV)

Concern for the earth is nothing
new.

Walter Brueggemann, writing in
the January 2016 issue of Sojourners says, “The issue of climate change
is a recent one, but the matter of revivifying the creation is a very old one
in faith.”He goes back to the eighth
century B.C.E. prophets Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah.With rich imaginations and strong vision
these prophets proclaimed a powerful word that rings even more true today.

Over and over again the prophets
called Israel to recognize that choices have consequences. They saw that God expected “steadfast love”
and “justice” and “knowledge of God.”The absence of those always led to a “therefore.”

Hosea says it clearly:“…the Lord has an indictment against the
inhabitants of the land.There is no
faithfulness or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land… Therefore the
land mourns and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and
the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing.”

Indeed, there are consequences,
and the land mourns, as do all creatures who
live on it. For lack of justice and
knowledge of God and steadfast love, our land mourns. So, too, does the land of Guatemala. It is filthy. It is abused. It is polluted by
long unregulated chemical use and newer poisonous mining practices. It is another sad example of so many
third-world countries where both native elites and outside extractors fail to
acknowledge that God’s creation is made for all.

Some in Guatemala are
awakening.Professor and poet,
practicing Catholic, and Mayan spiritual guide Daniel Caño says "we need
to ask Mother Earth’s forgiveness for abusing her.”He urges a return to the old Mayan
understanding of the oneness of all of creation and of our reliance upon her
provision.Some are protesting, at great
personal risk, the mining practices that are sickening their children and
ruining their villages.Others protest
the deforestation occurring throughout the country.

Ponder Hosea’s phrase: “Therefore
the land mourns, and all who live in it languish....”In the U.S., in Guatemala, throughout the
world, creation cries out for steadfast love and justice for all.Choices do have consequences.

Prayer: Oh
God of all creation, we confess that we have not assured steadfast love and
justice for all and our lands languish. As we are dragged mercilessly
through this political season, may our choices be guided by your ancient
prophets so that blessing may come for all of creation. In Jesus’ name.
Amen!

Dave
Winters, along with his wife, Rachel Lausch, was a Mission Co-Worker in
Guatemala and helpsfacilitate the more than 20-year partnership between
Heartland and Maya Quiché Presbyteries.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

I lost a little
weight in December. No, I wasn’t planning to jump start any New Year’s
resolutions. I’d unexpectedly found myself joining the subsistence farmer’s
diet for a few weeks, as adapted for a vegetarian visitor. I ate soup of yuca
and plantain, grown yards away from where we ate, gratefully harvested from
land cultivated for a dozen years by my friends, the campesinos of El
Tamarindo.

The communion of those midday meals gave us sustenance in the midst of
spirit-draining tragedy. While crops and homes were being sinfully destroyed by
machetes and bulldozers, I took a break from my prayers and advocacy efforts to
sit at table and find refreshment with these friends. For a long series of
days, the police, lawyers, and hired hands worked irrepressibly to complete the
eviction of the campesino farmers, while the community kept vigil, stood
guard, and did everything possible to preserve the dignity and rights of its
members.

Campesinos consult with their lawyers while riot police
walk past in El Tamarindo.

A decade ago the campesinos
sought title to the land but, before they could acquire it, an owner appeared:
a corporation with commercial interests instead of plans to produce food for
local neighbors or for the millions living in nearby Barranquilla. Since
Colombia’s free trade agreements came into effect, the land became much too
valuable to be left in the hands of campesinos. After five years of
community resistance, the company finally succeeded in ousting the farmers in
December 2015.

The eviction of the campesinos from El Tamarindo was a defeat, but it’s
not the end of the story. Some of the campesinos have relocated to a
different farm, while others have found shelter in the city; all await the
verdict of the constitutional Court, which has agreed to consider their appeal.
In the meantime, the Presbyterian Church of Colombia continues to stand in
Christian solidarity with them, working and praying for God’s justice.

Prayer: Merciful God, forgive our complicity in a system that destroys life
and livelihoods in the quest for “progress.” Give us eyes to see and ears to
hear your people bound by injustice. Give us hearts of flesh that stir us to
act in true solidarity with them, that together we may see your light and
experience your healing love. Amen.

Sarah
Henken lives in Barranquilla, Colombia, and serves with Presbyterian World
Mission as Regional Liaison for the Andean countries of South America and as
site coordinator for the Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) in Colombia. She blogs
sporadically at andeanjourney.wordpress.com.

I first met Jiyoung Kim when we were students together at
McCormick Theological Seminary from 2008-2012. She came from South Korea with
her husband when he started his masters program; he was going to school while
she took care of their three children.

When she was in South Korea, Jiyoung had been an artist for
Christian Education curriculum for the Presbyterian Church in Korean (PROK).
Her beautiful images made from clay are perfect illustrations for how God
speaks to us as we learn and grow as people of faith.

Clay image by Jiyoung Kim

In 2012, Jiyoung started her Doctorate in Educational Ministry
at Columbia Theological Seminary, and her focus is how we use the church to
care for creation. She has focused on how small churches can work together to
love the earth and all that God has made. In a recent piece she wrote that
"Christian education should be a place in which to thoughtfully engage
in understanding our practices and performances. Furthermore, it
should help them to live their lives the way God wants them to live. For this reason,
ecology is one of the subjects which Christianity can put it into action
as a specific, important and meaningful idea. We are empowered to do
stewardship that should reimagine what it means to have dominion over the
Earth, doing well by God, our Creator."

Her work relies on all senses so that the children, youth, and
congregations she engages feel connected in every way to the earth and to each
other. You can see some of her work and read her writing here.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was
led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the
devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was
famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone
to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not
live by bread alone.’” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant
all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give
their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I
give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be
yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and
serve only him.’” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the
pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw
yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels
concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so
that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is
said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished
every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. (Luke 4:1-13, NRSV)

Domesticated alpaca roam the mountaintops outside of Huancayo in the central Andes
where mining and climate change are dramatically impacting the environment.

Jesus had yet to preach a single word, perform a single miracle
or even speak a single truth to power, and yet the devil calls him the ¨Son of
God¨ - a tempting title reserved for Caesars, Kings and Emperors.

Former Peru President Garcia once screamed that no advancement
will ever come as long as the ¨dogs of the orchard¨ block human progress. The
¨dogs¨ he spoke of were the indigenous peoples of the jungle who were
protecting the lands from the invasion of the extractive industry whose billion
dollar profits are the backbone of Peruvian progress today.

He wanted to settle a debate about how to use those
profits: some on the right argue for more investment in business, some on
the left argue for more investment in health and education. But for those from
the ¨orchard¨ - the ¨dogs¨ - they bark and growl, wondering what difference any investment will make if it all hinges on the destruction of land, displacement
of peoples, contamination of waters, imbalance and discord in Creation.

It is hard to imagine that there is greater distance between us
than that between left and right. But in the end, we live between two worlds,
not just two points on a line.

One world seeks harmony, a peaceable kingdom. The
other seeks something better, a great city upon a hill.

One uses nature to move the human family forward. The other
embraces nature as sister and brother.

One is fully human, delicate and vulnerable, trusting and
innocent; it is knowledgeable and wise and so often misunderstood. So often
dehumanized.

And the other? It is less than divine, seeking power to make
positive change, generating profits to share with the less fortunate; it is an
oh so tempting image – perhaps even of the devil himself.

You and I may never be emperors, but like Jesus we still have a
choice to make: accept our humanity or hide from it. What world will you
choose? What will be your kingdom come?

Prayer: God of all Creation, may Your knowledge fill the
earth as the waters cover the sea, and may we learn to neither hurt or destroy
on all Your holy mountain. Amen.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

At the PEC conference in September 2015, The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert
Nelson II, Director of the Office of Public Witness, preached,
"Presbyterians cannot solve the world’s environmental issues alone. It
will take a unified effort from the privileged, those living in poverty, people
of different races and cultures." To that end, we have invited a diversity
of voices to provide devotions for this year’s Lenten Devotional.

Our inspiration comes from Isaiah 58: 6-9, Is not this
the fast that I choose… God promised the Israelites a new thing on
their return from exile. Yet on their arrival, they built a system that
included injustice, oppression, and hunger. This was not the fast that God
chose. Today, climate change and environmental degradation lead to issues of
injustice, oppression, and hunger. This is not the fast that God chooses.

Reflections are planned for Ash Wednesday, each Sunday in Lent,
Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. We hope that you find
these reflections helpful and hopeful in this Lenten time of journeying to the
cross.

Ash Wednesday Reflection

by Sue Smith

Is not this the fast that I choose...to break
every yoke? (Isaiah 58:6, NRSV)

As we enter this season of Lent and our journey to the cross, a
time of considering how we can make changes in our lives, those of us in the
mainstream of the environmental movement might try to understand the efforts of
the environmental justice movement, and how we can work together to promote
that work. To help my understanding, I reached out to one of the leaders in the
environmental justice (EJ) movement, Dr. Nicky Sheats. We talked about carbon
trading, and how the mainstream environmental groups and the EJ movement look
at the issue differently.

The journey to the cross goes through Environmental Justice Communities

What is carbon trading? Usually it is reducing overall carbon
dioxide emissions by some defined amount coupled with the trading of emissions.
Then it is called “cap and trade.” All polluters must obtain an “allowance”
before they can emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide. Overall reductions are
achieved by setting the amount of available allowances, and therefore carbon
dioxide emissions, at a lower level than previous emissions. Overall emissions
may drop, but individual corporations can avoid or limit reductions by buying
allowances. Mainstream response? Great, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, positive
impact on global warming and climate change. EJ response? If you emit carbon
dioxide, you also emit other air pollutants that make people sick. So it
matters to communities where these reductions occur. But it doesn’t matter to
the trading program.

When discussions on carbon trading began, was the EJ movement
consulted? No. As far as Dr. Sheats knows, no one reached out to the EJ
movement. Did the EJ movement pitch a fit? Yes. Their perspective? Let’s take
this opportunity to do some planning so that we make sure there are emissions
reductions in communities overburdened with pollution.

Let us remember that everyone’s context is different. The EJ
community wants to ensure emission reductions occur in neighborhoods most
affected by pollution. The mainstream environmental movement wants an overall
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. These are very different goals. But they
are not necessarily conflicting goals.

Have things changed over the years? Yes. Now that carbon trading
is EPA policy, the mainstream seems more willing to listen to the needs of the
EJ movement. As Christians, is this good enough? I don’t think so.

God asks us to break every yoke. One of the yokes is that
suffered by EJ communities. As we enter this season of Lent, and reflect on how
we might change our lives and break yokes, let us consider how we can make sure
that that we not only hear all voices in the environmental movement, but that
we take every opportunity to ensure that the concerns of all voices are
included in planning solutions.

Prayer: Dear Lord, make our hearts open to the possibilities
of the needs of all peoples in the care for your creation. Amen.

Sue Smith is the former Treasurer of Presbyterians for Earth
Care, a recent M.Div. graduate of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and a
member of the First Presbyterian Church of Rumson, NJ.

I want to thank Dr. Nicky Sheats for participating in this
conversation. He is the director of the Center for the Urban Environment at the
John S. Watson Institute for Public Policy of Thomas Edison State College,
Trenton, NJ, which provides support for the environmental justice community
both locally and nationally.